However, there are frameworks in which you and your partner can co-create a loving foundation upon which to grow an epic, legendary relationship.

The strategies I am going to outline here will help you keep your relationship exciting, grow together (vs growing apart) with deeper and deeper connection, satisfaction, and intimacy with time.

This article is about creating your best love relationship.

1. Get In Alignment

“If you align expectations with reality, you will never be disappointed” — Terrell Owens

One of the best things you can do, whether you are in a relationship for a minute or a decade, is define what you want for & love most about yourself.

Followed immediately by what you want for & love most in a partner.

You will quickly find that when you go through these exercise chronologically, first writing all the things you love most about yourself, and then in your partner, you will find these lists will be much closer than you may have thought.

In fact, they are one and the same.

I always liken it to defining the blue person on the red planet. Once you define who you are — in this case a blue person — it will be far easier for you to spot another blue person in a sea of red people.

Here is the list my partner, Giovanni, wrote about his future wife. He first completed the exercise about himself, and then about his future partner. He did not know me at the time of this exercise, and, either eerily or exactly, this description of his ideal partner is precisely who I am.

3. Courageous Conversations

The one exercise I have found most useful in deepening our relationship is to have weekly meetings about how the relationship is doing.

Just like you would do in your business —it is the relationship equivalent to the weekly staff meetings.

Like in any staff meeting, we discuss wins and challenges. We discuss pain points, and we resolve to fix them, as a team.

This is not a date.

This is a ‘relationship staff meeting” wherein we sit down and we talk about how we have shown up for the other in the past week.

You will need to put on your adult pants here. If this is done well, it fosters connection, a forum for an open dialogue, trust and intimacy.

Which, if you are wanting an epic, legendary love relationship, this is what you want, right?

The first rule for this courageous conversation is to expect that you may hear from your partner that you have not been the best Queen or King this week.

We are all human, and as much as we try, cannot knock out home runs all the time.

You’re going to suck sometimes at being a partner. The point is not pretend like it didn’t happen, or worse, deflect your behaiour onto your partner.

It is all too easy to get defensive with the “What do you mean??” or to deny responsibility “Well what about when you did….?”.

No pointing fingers, and no ego, please.

As the saying goes, when you point one finger at someone else, there are three fingers pointing back at you.

The point of this discussion is NOT to be accusatory. It is to allow an open forum for you and your partner to be and feel heard.

As such, you need to have safe guards in place before you begin.

Avoid using absolutes. You “always” or you “never” are destructive and contrarian.

No one is always or never doing anything. If only things were so black and white! There are always shades of grey…and usually it is way more than 50.

Reframe the experience to how it made YOU feel. It is ok feel slighted, unheard, unloved, or unsupported. It is the art of expressing these feelings are important here. It is more constructive to describe the incident and discuss how it made you feel. [“When X happened it made me feel …” instead of “You did X and that was wrong because …” ]

In the end it is the emotional imprint it left on you that matters. The what or why behind why it triggered you. Let your partner know how you have processed this event, and your perception of it.

Otherwise, you both will make assumptions about the other person and their intentions which may unintentionally lay the foundation for resentment and bitterness in the long run.

One final point here — this conversation is not about solving every itty bitty minuscule issue. Don’t make stuff up if you had a good week just to have something to say! Use your discretion and this time for a meaningful discussion.

So here is the order of how our meetings go:

There is a song we have chosen to start each meeting. It is the only time we play the song, so as to neurologically prime us for the conversation.

We each will start off by talking about the wins for the relationship in the last week.

Followed by what we love about the person and how they showed up for us in the last week.

These process is intentionally in this order.

It is so much easier to slip into the pattern of finding things we do not like, or how we have been wronged.

But this is your life partner.

Your person.

Your one.

Your family.

They are special enough to be in your life, and it is important to be coming from a place of love and gratitude for this meeting.

This meeting is not about pointing fingers.

It is about building together, fixing cracks together. Not delegating your role or responsibility as a partner. Get honest with yourself around your intentions of this meeting.

Then we take turns answering the following questions:

On a scale from 1–10, how did I do as your partner today?

What are the 2 or 3 things that I can do for you in the next few days to move that number up to a 10? (If, of course, the original answer was less than a 10!)

This is where the honest conversations happen. Have an open heart and create space for your partner to discuss his or her thoughts. Discuss your feelings, together. And if it is available, come up with a game plan, together on how you both can improve.

We wrap this meeting up with what we love most about each other.

This meeting takes no more than 20 minutes on an average week.

It has of course been longer, but once you have been doing this for a while, it becomes a powerful tool for fostering connection and trust.

4. Sacred Rituals — Carve Out Time For Sex

“Sex is as important as eating or drinking and we ought to allow the one appetite to be satisfied with as little restraint or false modesty as the other.” — Marquis de Sade

Oh how unromantic! Scheduled sex? Ugh. I want it to be free flowing and spontaneous, passionate, and romantic!

Awesome.

Do that.

Be a free spirit and sex all over the place.

*AND* schedule in time for sex as well.

The more you are scheduled, the more freedom it creates.

Life is busy. Work demands, home life demands, if you have children you are usually shuttling them to classes, friends, family members.

It is easy to wind up tired, exhausted, and without a roadmap to regularly connect with your partner.

I have written about why sex is important for brain health, improving parasympathetics, and things like blood pressure, and heart rate here.

There is nothing that will do more for your health (and your partner) than a healthy, regular, juicy sex life.

Scheduling it in ensures it happens.

Sex is the greatest medium for intimate connection.

It is where you are your most vulnerable, your most primal, your most exposed. This is a wonderful opportunity to for bonding, trust, intimacy, and epic love to flourish.

Being a brain geek, I must also mention the amazing effects sex has on the brain.

First, it lights up your entire cortex, it engages feelings of joy and happiness (which are found in the prefrontal cortex — the area of the brain most affected by chronic, low grade stress of every day life), and all your vital signs improve — blood pressure lowers, heart rate lowers, oxygenation of the body goes up (from all that heavy panting), so you can properly relax.

Arianna Huffington, in her book Sleep, talks about the value of an orgasm in the evening right before bed. You are in a relaxed, euphoric state, and can drift off into dream land.

Schedule sex into your week.

5. Date Your Spouse

“We try to live by the secret of sevens. A friend, who has been married for over 40 years, told us about this magic. Make and keep a date every seven days, take a night away alone, for yourself, every seven weeks, and schedule an adult-only vacation every seven months.” — Summer Sanders

There is nothing more important in your kingdom than the King and Queen (that’s you two).

This includes the children living in it.

Yes children are important, and need nurturing, love and attention. No argument there.

And, they will best thrive in an environment where dad and mom are completely in love with each other.

It will teach them about love, how to treat a partner, and they will likely model your relationship when they are adults.

So date your partner.

Take turns planning out an evening together. It doesn’t need to cost a lot of money to date your partner.

There are list after list after list of cheap date ideas. Don’t let money be the barrier to your happiness.

Get creative and find fun ways to spend time with each other.

6. Daily Gratitude

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.” — Melody Beattie

One of the ways my partner and I remind ourselves of how we uniquely contribute to the relationship is a shared daily gratitude journal.

Dr. Stephanie is a big-hearted chiropractor with a special interest in functional neurology, brain optimization, and weight loss.

She studied Neuroscience and Psychology before becoming a Doctor of Chiropractic. She has been in private practice for 16 years where she is helps people achieve extraordinary health at her Toronto clinic -The Health Loft.

The Thrive Global Community welcomes voices from many spheres. We publish pieces written by outside contributors with a wide range of opinions, which don’t necessarily reflect our own. Learn more or join us as a community member!

Share your comments below. Please read our commenting guidelines before posting. If you have a concern about a comment, report it here.

10 Simple Ways To Improve All Your Relationships in 2018

Then The Kids Came Along…

Sign up for the Thrive Global newsletter

“People look for retreats for themselves, in the country, by the coast, or in the hills . . . There is nowhere that a person can find a more peaceful and trouble-free retreat than in his own mind. . . . So constantly give yourself this retreat, and renew yourself.”